Col R
Hariharan
There is
trouble brewing on the Tamil shores, with shock waves being felt across
Palk Strait too. At the core of the problem are the twin
terror trails that are becoming more discernable. Analysis of recent
terror activities in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka lend credence to their
presence. One relates to the Indian jehadi network and the other to
the LTTE’s overseas offshoot’s efforts to gain a toehold in the island
nation.
Both have
common features: obsession with a cause, motivation to carry out attacks
against all odds, and the existence of local and overseas networks. Both
found a fertile ground due to the short sighted policies of the respective
governments. However, the comparison ends there. The jehadi network in
Tamil Nadu seems to have fared better due to regional vote bank politics.
However, the LTTE is finding it difficult to push through its revival
efforts, thanks to Sri Lanka’s counter measures and the immediate
suppression of any activity smacking of separatism.
Jehad in
Garden of Peace
Chennai was
stunned on May Day by two low-intensity explosions on the
Bangalore-Guwahati superfast express at the city’s central station. The blasts
shattered the myth of Tamil Nadu being “a garden of peace
and security”, as the state’s chief minister had claimed. A young
woman was killed and 14 others were injured in the
explosions. Analysis of the explosives, including fragments of the
timers, showed that the composition of the explosives was similar to
those used by the Indian Mujahideen.
Suspicion of an ISI hand was
aroused after Mohammed Sahir Hussain, a Sri Lankan national,
arrested two days before the blasts, confessed that he worked for
Pakistan Intelligence based in its high commission in Colombo. He said
he was tasked by Amir Zubair Siddiqui, counsellor (visa) at the high
commission, to gather information on installations in Tamil Nadu and
Karnataka. Hussain added he had sent photographs and maps of US Consulate
in Chennai and Israel Consulate in Bangalore to his handler.
Siddiqui’s name had
cropped up earlier in 2012 when Thamim Ansari, a terror suspect,
was apprehended on the way to Tiruchi airport to catch a flight
to Colombo. Police recovered DVDs containing visuals of the army
paragliding training and a parade of the army signal corps. He told the
police that he was instructed by Siddiqui to take the videos, which
also included Nagapattinam port and Madras Regimental Centre
in Wellington.
Further investigations into the
Chennai blasts pointed out that Abu Backer Siddiqui, a member of the
banned Tamil Nadu outfit, Al-Umma, had carried out the blasts.
Al- Umma’s operative Panna Ismail, who was in custody, also confirmed
Abu Siddiqui’s involvement.
The investigators suspect that
Abu Siddiqui was trying to reactivate Al-Umma, which had gone into
oblivion after the arrest of its leadership in 1998. Al-Umma,
along with other fundamentalist Muslim groups, sprouted in Tamil Nadu
following the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the rise of Hindutva
groups like Hindu Munnani and VHP in the state.
The terrorist organization gained
notoriety when it carried out 13 bomb blasts at 11 locations in
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, minutes before BJP leader LK Advani was
to address his election rally on February 14, 1998. Forty six people
were killed and over 200 were injured in the blasts.
Outfits Lean
on Politics
The DMK government’s follow-up
showed the determination to crush the terrorists in the state. It
banned not only the Al Umma but also Jehad Committee, another
fundamentalist body.
Key leaders of the Jehad
Committee and the Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazagham (TMMK), a
Muslim NGO believed to be founded by former members of the banned
terrorist outfit Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), were arrested.
In the Coimbatore blast trials,
158 terrorists were convicted, of which 43 received life sentences in
2007. But the alleged mastermind, Abdul Nasar Madani, walked
free. Given a hero’s welcome in Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala), he
assured his support to the state’s Left Democratic Front (LDF)
regime and said he would work for the welfare of Dalits and Muslims.
In Tamil Nadu, the TMMK
sobered down; it broadened its agenda to include human rights,
reservation for the Muslims, administration of Waqf properties and social
security measures for the minorities. This helped the TMMK to leverage
support during elections using the perennial confrontation between
the DMK and the AIADMK.
The TMMK cloned into several
parties. The Tamil Nadu Thowheed Jamath was formed as a breakaway
group, which further broke up into two factions—Indian Thowheed
Jamath and Tamil Nadu Thowheed Jamath. Another competitive party that
took birth was Manitha Neya Makkal Katchi (MNMK), which is
allied with the AIADMK. It grew because of the weakening influence of
the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), the oldest Muslim party in the
state.
Yet another fringe group that
gained notoriety was Manitha Neethi Pasarai (MNP), whose cadres were
arrested in Coimbatore in 2006 for plotting serial bomb blasts
similar to the 1998 blasts. All five cadres were acquitted in 2008.
The MNP has connections with Kerala’s National Democratic Front
(NDF), which formed the Popular Front of India (PFI) with MNP and the
Karnataka for Dignity (KFD), another such organization, to coordinate
its efforts. At present, the fundamentalist parties in Tamil Nadu
seem to have more influence with the DMK than the AIADMK. This
was evident when the DMK government released nine Al Umma extremists,
sentenced to 13 years of jail, before they completed their sentences
in September 2009.
There is a need to understand the
morphing of the fundamentalist groups into political parties. Though
they have denounced terrorism, they tend to focus on the politics of
confrontation. Their targets include the US and those responsible
for attacks on Muslims, globally. This makes it important for
terrorism watchdogs to keep their activities under watch. The
other aspect is to curb the foreign connections of these mainstream
parties.
Tamil Issue
Resurfaces
The plight of Sri Lankan Tamils
recently became an issue in Tamil Nadu. This was compounded by the
competitive politics among the Dravidian parties, as well as
Sri Lankan President, Mahinda Rajapaksa’s poor post-war handling of
issues related to the empowerment and rehabilitation of Tamil population.
Rajapaksa’s development model focused on development of infrastructure
and public services, without adequate efforts to resolve the core
issue of political autonomy for the Tamils. He conducted the
Northern Provincial Council (NPC) elections four years after the war
on LTTE ended. And the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) government
that came to power was not given a free hand even in exercising its
limited powers. The retention of a retired general as the governor of
the province has not helped in restoring amity.
So, it is not surprising the
LTTE’s offshoot abroad is trying to take advantage to revive
its activity in Sri Lanka. There are scores of distressed families of
LTTE cadres and sympathisers of Tamil Eelam separatism in
the Northern Province. Most of the 13,000 “rehabilitated” LTTE cadres
in Sri Lanka are without employment. Army still occupies chunks of
private agricultural land despite promises to return them to the rightful
owners.
Terror
Strikes by LTTE
According to Sri Lankan analyst
DBS Jeyaraj, there were three attempts by overseas LTTE elements to
trigger activity in Sri Lanka. Significantly, there was a Tamil Nadu
connection in all the three attempts.
The first attempt was discovered
in March 2102 after investigating the murder of a member of the Eelam
People’s Democratic Party (EPDP, led by Cabinet Minister
Douglas Devananda) in Trincomalee district. A handwritten note “death
to traitors” with the Tiger emblem was found near his body.
Intensive interrogation of suspects uncovered an attempt at the
revival of LTTE assisted by the Vinayagam faction of the overseas LTTE.
Thorough interrogations also
brought to the fore other revival attempts assisted by the Vinayagam
faction of the overseas LTTE. Kumaran of the Vinayagam faction in
Paris recruited 15 former LTTE cadres in Tamil Nadu and organized
them into three cells of five members each. One of these cells
was sent to Trincomalee in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka in order
to carry out the killing of the EPDP cadre in March 2012.
The second attempt at LTTE’s
revival was uncovered in December 2012 when a former LTTE cadre was arrested
in Colombo. It led to the startling discovery of “a
clandestine campaign” underway in Tamil Nadu to recruit Sri Lankan
Tamil youths sympathetic to the Tamil Eelam cause and
indoctrinate them with the LTTE ideology.
This was being financed by
the overseas LTTE elements. Based on the information provided by
Sri Lanka, Tamil Nadu police raided a house in Pammal on the
outskirts of Chennai and arrested four occupants—S Suresh Kumar,
D Udaya Doss, T Maheswaran and K Krishnamurthy— in December 2012.
Suresh Kumar headed an LTTE team that made explosives. Police
recovered documents, electronic circuit boards and panels from the house.
In March 2014, the Ministry of
Defense in Sri Lanka ordered the freezing of all funds, assets and
economic resources belonging to 16 Tamil diaspora organizations and
424 select individuals, “believed…. to be committing, attempting to
commit, facilitating or participating, in the commission of acts
of terrorism.” A Gazette Extraordinary notification, signed by the
defense secretary on March 20, 2014, listed them in accordance with
the UN Regulations No 1 of 2012.
The latest attempt by LTTE was in
March 2014. A former LTTE cadre Ponniah Selvanayagam Kajeepan, aka
Gobi, opened fire on a policeman in the Kilinochchi area of Sri
Lanka. The security forces carried out a search to hunt him out. In the
end, they killed not only Gobi, but two other former LTTE cadres,
Suntharalingam Gajatheeban, aka Theiveegan, and Navaratnam
Navaneethan, aka Appan.
Further investigations and
interrogation of suspects revealed Theiveegan, a former bodyguard of
V Prabhakaran, was a black tiger as well as a pilot, who had flown
sortiesfor the LTTE. He was in touch with leaders of two LTTE’s rival
factions abroad—Nediyavan in Norway and Vinayagam in France. Theiveegan
made many trips to India to keep in touch with contacts. Sri Lankan
intelligence discovered that Theiveegan had the support of another
senior LTTE leader Dayamohan, who had sought refuge in Switzerland.
Fraught with
Peril
Sri Lanka is finding it difficult
to grapple with Tamil Nadu becoming a base for the LTTE and the
support for Tamil separatists among political parties in the state.
The DMK and the ruling AIADMK have adopted a strong stand against the
Rajapaksa government. Can these parties be weaned from their negative
focus if Rajapaksa walks the extra mile to make it happen? With
the change in leadership in New Delhi, the Modi regime has its work
cut out.
Written on May 27, 2014
Courtesy:
India Legal, Vol VII Issue 20, June 30,
2014 http://indialegalonline.com/tale-twin-troubles/
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